Is local government capable of responding?

Floods, fires, earthquakes and epidemics bring Australians together in magnificent ways, and we “just do it”.

Brisbane’s lord mayor, Campbell Newman, has been at the fore of the flood response, as have been the mayors of Ipswich, Toowoomba and elsewhere; as do mayors wherever fire, flood, explosion, pollution or other disasters hit Australian communities.

Federal infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese has anticipated working more directly with local government as his frustration with incompetent states became more evident. “Think globally, act locally” has been the mantra since the 1997 Post-Rio conference in Newcastle NSW. Mayors generally want “action” over “words” and Albanese wants action.

Historically, leaders in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth among others did great things which benefitted subsequent generations.

We have to ask if local governments now show strategic direction, professional capacities to plan infrastructure, and the leadership needed to unite communities? In other words, is Albanese right and is local government capable of doing what Albanese wants?

Brisbane is a good place for us to start but then look at situations which are fairly typical of our regions’ legacies, whichever state or territory.

Brisbane’s former long-term lord mayor Jim Soorley started TravelSmart in 1992 followed up by the Busway Strategy for Brisbane (1995). He planned to use buses for high-level operations where railways were absent as a genuine balance between urban quality, car usage and bus system development, to save Brisbane from Sydney-like car-saturation.

The long-term mayor of Curitiba in Brazil from the early 1970s, Jaime Lerner, turned that decrepit place into a showcase of public transport service to its community, using buses. He inspired the world. Like Soorley he showed the benefits of long-term leadership, conviction and commonsense.

Campbell Newman is an active lord mayor, developing freeway plans in concert with private sector proponents, in a similar manner to Sydney. Those projects have been proven to be suspect in commercial terms; which might not matter if urban outcomes are positive.

In the early 1970s the Whitlam government helped to reverse the NSW government’s inner freeway plans. There has been no indication that Albanese has a similar or adapted approach.

"Tasmania Together (and Growing Victoria Together) was conceived in 2001 as an emulation of Oregon Shines. This is essentially a state-driven and –confined platform but has produced some salutary indicators. The government warns that “Collaborative approaches to complex problems should only be undertaken when necessary. Although there is a conviction about the effectiveness of collaboration, there is also a warning about its selective use”.

As explained on the Tasmanian Premier’s website, “Making collaboration work effectively can be resource intensive, costly and time consuming, and a long term view may be required to obtain positive results. Competing political and community agendas can undermine its objectives”.

A leading figure in Melbourne told me of his “ineluctable insight” that consultation is kaput in this land of spinning. “We have various processes which magnify the voice of the whiners who simply oppose anything and for whom change is an anathema; allow vested interests to play merry hell with 'process' to get a great outcome for them; and allow a gutless authority - whatever it is - to slide away from stuff that is really necessary (and they know it) either because there is no willingness to hold a line on fundamentals or bow to the always negative advice from the clones in various Treasuries that something requires a dollar being spent (the rating agencies...)”.

To him this was “exemplified by the Windsor Hotel redevelopment in Melbourne, when, faced with an iconic building needing revival but a lukewarm or worse reception to the owner/developer's proposal, the planning minister's media tart was uncovered calling for a sham consultation so that the anticipated confected outrage would allow the minister to tell the developer to **** off. After the exposure of the plan, the Minister felt compelled to approve the project”.

After all, for all its other defects, the protests over the resumption of a handful of properties was enough for NSW premier Kristina Keneally to trash the Sydney 4-station $6 billion CBD Metro, in a state that is poll-averse. Also dumped was the Albanese-sponsored West Metro which he had put $111 million into. He then put over $2 billion into a rail project that was out-of-priority order, in the midst of an election campaign; with the state Opposition proposing to reverse that in favour of previously-announced (by Labor) rail extensions. People in Sydney are more than used to such shenanigans.

The University of NSW’s School of the Built Environment is probably not alone in hosting overseas students who study the decrepitude of governmental structures and functioning against international benchmarking.

Confusion reigns in various contexts, and where there is confusion, a different approach is needed.

Local government has complex politics and that is normal. What is not normal is chronic constipation and epic tribal warfare. Some things are logical but cannot be agreed; while others benefit a segment to the anger of other sections of the population. Albanese might find that local politics are as frustrating as dealing with Kristina Keneally.

Classic constipation: Bondi Beach’s water frontage is still much as it was in the 1940s whereas Manly’s has progressed.

Newcastle’s inner rail corridor remained once the goods yards had been removed and the riverfront developed as a lively precinct, even though Hunter Street West was thus denied the spending power of the new residents. The city has had the same lord mayor since 1999.

BHP announced the closure of steelmaking in 1997 which led to a recovery program, partly endorsed by the Howard government (such as a short-lived free trade zone on one parcel of land). However the politics of the place were such that the NSW Government stripped the city of its planning powers over the redevelopment zones on the river. The regional chamber of commerce called for the sacking of council.

Jump forward to 2011, the same calls are being made. The rail line is still there and the city council has borne some of the blame from stakeholders who believe that it did not adequately support the state transport minister who tried to replace the railway with a less divisive system. A major retail group pulled out of its massive redevelopment scheme. The city council has seen the departure of a fourth general manager as a result of acrimony.

Classic warfare: same issues plus greenfield residential developments on the borders of rural shires (Macarthur South in Sydney); about 20 agencies with control over Sydney Harbour; and the redevelopment of two officially-designated centres, Hurstville’s town centre (3 councils, 2 at war), and St Leonards (also 3 councils, 2 with very restrictive controls). Port Botany and Kingsford Smith Airport are both split between 2 Sydney councils; and Albanese has said that his port planning regime will ensure efficient planning of port areas. An inquiry into Sydney councils 10 years ago found that one of those councils had already frittered away its share of the port zone.

A leading Newcastle business figure who had pushed for economic reform and invested in community-led projects summarised his position last week to me:

the system beat me in that there is too much to do here to balance my own business requests. Must say after the (retail) decision there are not many in my circle who wish to focus on council issues. Whatever is done the system beats the individual and our day to day work still needs to be done. I think I have just joined the apathetic majority.

Maybe having long-term mayors is not such a good idea. Is it luck or good judgement that folk demonstrate when they vote for reformers like Soorley and Lerner?

How will Albanese make such situations work? Will he consult after more than a decade of consultations? Will he impose a decision on a state-owned facility fasomehow, and if so what would the cost of the sweetener be? What will other cities and regions think about that?

To come back to the nub, no structure can be imposed on St Leonards, Hurstville, Bondi Beach or Newcastle that will enable federal collaboration. No amount of persuasion will salve historical wounds.

Floods and fire produce an esprit de corps that is rare to find in normal life, that is, in the absence of leadership. If Albanese and Australia are to succeed, it is not enough to only unite after the problem has become apparent, rather than inspire communities as Soorley, Lerner and earlier Australian leaders did.